Thursday, December 30, 2010

Awesome new exercise trend: PILOXING! Strength of pilates, with boxing moves. I jabbed, crossed, hooked, and used weights to my heart's content tonight! While I'm home, my mom got be a student package membership to her yoga studio, which is $30 for a month of unlimited classes. Drop-ins are $7, but if you go to five of them, the package is paid off anyway. I've been going constantly to show my mom how appreciative I am, oh & I'm totally in love. I've been going to body sculpt, different yoga classes, and decided to try the piloxing class. I'm hooked! Too bad I leave for school on Sunday, I wish I could stay with that studio year round!

So what is piloxing? A lot of boxing moves, but the instructor, Nick, also focused on form. He reminded us constantly to drop our shoulders, tuck our tailbones, and engage our core muscles. At the end, he used pilates moves with short rounds of extended child's pose. It was incredible. The music all had a great beat, and a lot of it was Michael Jackson! Sweet deal. I'd definitely recommend it!

After piloxing, I stayed for the yoga class, which is the only class I've taken on Thursdays over winter break. Piloxing definitely didn't kill me-it was actually something I felt really strong in. After month 1 of Insanity, I felt like a lot of the moves were the same. Yoga, however, was extremely challenging. My arms were quite fatigued, so I found myself dropping into child's pose quite a lot. Downward facing dog just wouldn't hold for a long time, and neither would any of the warrior poses, but I'm glad I went.

Yoga was definitely a lesson in listening to my body. I've been bad at this over the years, pushing and pushing and pushing and hating the idea of rest or not going all out. Post-injury, though, I've started listening to what my body wants and needs-if it's exhausted, I'll go easy on it. If I need to modify something, or take a rest, I'll do it. Tonight I had to do a lot of that, and it wasn't as horrible as I used to think it was. I'm learning, slowly but surely!

And because no post would be complete without one of these:

Switching it up a bit with La Jaconde! Blurry but still, awesome! From the Louvre.

The daily insanity of a green eyed college student who began running after high school and never looked back! Loves marathons with Team in Training, and experimenting in the kitchen. Disneyland obsession. Gluten-free and still trying to figure it all out!